Wednesday, December 21, 2011

One of the most interesting little factoids in the annals of horror history, to me at least, is the fact that Mickey Rooney heavily protested the original Silent Night, Deadly Night when it was released, going so far as to say that "the scum who made that movie should be run out of town", and yet, he appeared just a few short years later in a leading role in the fifth and final installment in the franchise, The Toy Maker. This has always fascinated me to no end and i've always wondered how the hell he ended up in the sequel to a horror film he was so adamantly against. So I harnessed the power of Facebook to find out ...

Brian Yuzna was the producer and writer of Silent Night 5 as well as the director of such films as The Dentist, Return of the Living Dead 3 and Bride of Re-Animator. In other words, he's kinda the man, a dude who quite frankly deserves a lot more recognition than he often gets. In any event, I figured if anyone knew the answers to my questions it'd be Yuzna and being that we were already friends on the 'book, I decided to hit him up and find out those answers for myself. To my surprise, he actually took the time out of his day to offer some up.

In his reply, Yuzna provided some details about how the film came to be as well as how Rooney came on board and what he was like on set, information that I was never privy to until now, even being such a big fan of the movie. I don't know if anyone reading this digs The Toy Maker as much as I do, but I figured i'd share the brief interaction for anyone who does. So here's a special peek inside my private Facebook messages!

As you can see I got a little greedy and tried digging for more information, which Yuzna never replied to. But hey, i'm just thankful and grateful that he took the time out to reply to my first message. You the man, B-ry.

Thus is the beauty of Facebook, granting us fans unprecedented access to the people responsible for the shit we love and cherish.

If you missed it, check out my love letter to The Toy Maker, which I wrote up earlier this month over at my boy Tom Bryce's blog Shit Movie Fest!

Pretty awesome that Brian Yuzna actually replied. He really is underrated, even if he did produce some pretty awful stuff over the years.

I was curious about Rooney hating on the original and staring in the series too, but I guess he got over it. Can't say that I'm a fan of the The Toy Maker, but Rooney certainly was the best part of the film.

I'm looking forward to Yuzna's second answer, if he ever gets back to you.

celebrate silent night, deadly night's 30th anniversary on blu-ray!

send me bombs, hate mail, anthrax or anything else!

Contact Info :

If you would like to chat with me, make any suggestions, advertise on my site, trade links, supply your product for a giveaway, send me your horror movie or product to review or send me/ask me/tell me anything at all, e-mail or instant message me at mortis45@aol.com